Remember when a good government had lost its way? This was Julia Gillard's awkward explanation for her overnight substitution of Kevin Rudd.

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Presumably declaring that the Rudd government was spotless, save for, well, Rudd, was considered too honest. Not to mention, absurd.

Fifteen years later, unity is again a problem for Labor, although now there is too much of it.

Professionalised to the point of pointlessness, the Labor Caucus has ceased to exist as the representative conscience of the party's rank-and-file membership.

Despite its thumping 94-seat return at this year's election, a good government may have lost its nerve. Or worse, its heart.

Anthony Albanese had been aghast at the reputational and interpersonal damage of Rudd's 2010 ouster. His protestations were ignored, but Albanese was vindicated by subsequent events.

Now, however, the combination of his unchallenged authority as a twice-elected prime minister and his sharp instinct for tabloid dangers is manifesting as a fetter on internal disagreement and the pursuit of risky change.

Transparency, good conscience, political courage, due process, and dealing with voters as intelligent adults are among the main markers of high-quality governing.

Think back to the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison succession, and it's not hard to see an improvement in the years since.

But should the baseline for performance measurement be anything rising above the mire of robodebt, divisive culture wars, and multiple ministries?

Recent controversies suggest a government committing only to what it must while facing almost no internal pressure to aim higher or act faster.

Each is telling, but none more so than Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's secretive flight to Nauru last month.

Its purpose was to sign an M.O.U. with........

© Canberra Times